Tag Archives: Moneyline

He has become CNN’s most controversial anchor, and some say its most divisive. So what made Lou Dobbs ask to be let out of his multi million dollar contract and leave the network, effective immediately? It must have stunned his colleagues and it’s certainly the talk of the cable new universe . The guy who started as the host of a business program, Moneyline, is now saying he wants to go beyond the role of a television jounalist. Gee, I thought he already had.

By way of full disclosure, I guested on Lou Dobbs Tonight a couple of times.

In person I found him genial and courteous, but that was until the camera was turned on. Then he became the dogmatic faux-populist we all know. No matter. The question is, what now for Lou Dobbs? Will he follow Sarah Palin’s lead and become a gadfly, appearing at rallies and tea parties convinced he really matters? Has he ridden the anti immigrant wave as far as he can on television? Will elected office be next?

The mind reels at the possibilities. Remember that Lou Dobbs met with some folks at the Fox News Channel not long ago. He’d be the jewel in the crown for them, probably airing just before Bill O’Reilly.

Maybe, however, he’s serious about staying out of the media limelight for a time. Just last month, he said his home was shot at while he and his wife were outside. The culprit, according to Lou Dobbs? “The national liberal media has chosen sides. And they have decided that they’re going to focus on the liberal view, which is that they will embrace illegal immigration no matter who is harmed, no matter how many laws are broken, or how few consequences there are for breaking those laws. My wife has now been and I have been shot at.”

The New Jersey State Police said it was more likely a hunter’s stray bullet. After all, Lou Dobbs lives in that part of the Garden State that loves its guns. Regardless, no one in their right mind thinks we’ve heard the last of the man. His ego is far too big, and maybe he’ll just goad President Barack Obama into doing more to prove he was actually born in Hawaii. That affiliation with birthers hurt his credibility, though you’d never get him to admit it.

Yet Lou Dobbs, in leaving CNN, joins an already crowded arena of conservative pols, pundits, and wannabees, all of whom have an agenda that could in theory clash with his. Will he still be relevant a year from now? You tell me.